June 8, 2022

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20:8–11

One of my instructors at Seminary told a story in class. There was a Ruling Elder in a local church whose son was a phenomenal soccer player. The chance to “go pro” was on the horizon, so the elder and his family attended worship less and less. Eventually, the Elder was asked to step down from leadership in the church because he had become so absent that people no longer knew him or his family. He relinquished his ordination, and his son became a successful professional soccer player– but to this day he does not know the Lord.

The Sabbath is a gift given from our Creator God to us as his creatures so why does it feel more like an interruption than an opportunity? Our answers to that question may vary– but we all have them. At the end of the day, the Sabbath challenges us to live, and extend the rest of God into the world. It is an act of worship, and radical trust that claims “If God has made all this, placed me in it. If he has given me gifts to draw the means of life from its soil, sea, culture, and economy - I can spend and extend a day for thankful rest and worship knowing that if He has given me all this, certainly he will care for me while I delight in Him.”

 — MATT ALLHANDS